


Murphy's Law

by Lexi_the_dragon_muse



Series: Out of chaos, comes order [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexi_the_dragon_muse/pseuds/Lexi_the_dragon_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murphy’s Law dictates that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  So when all of his S.H.I.E.L.D. communication gear started to go haywire, week three into an undercover mission in Colombia, Clint Barton knew immediately that something was happening.  Something big.  With his cover compromised, how will he make it back to New York in one piece?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murphy's Law

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the comments and kudos that this 'verse of mine has gotten so far. They really warm my heart. Sorry this one took so long, but I was waiting until the season finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to see where they were taking the canon 'verse and how that would play around this little series. I've had about half of this written prior to the finale and once I saw that, Clint here took control of the story and tried to make it longer than I wanted! I caved and gave it some length, but put my foot down once it was getting out of control. :)
> 
> As always, I still don't currently have a beta, so if you see any mistakes, please let me know!
> 
> Happy reading!!!

**Murphy’s Law**

It was common knowledge that Clint Barton had been raised in a circus.  It was a common rumor that his only talent was his uncanny aim.  However, despite those many rumors, that was not the truth.  While he wasn’t a genius like Tony Stark or Bruce Banner, he wasn’t the moron many people believe he was.  True, he didn’t have a normal childhood, or a chance to go to a regular school, but he got his G.E.D. at the age of nineteen.  He had managed over the course of seven years to complete his Bachelors of Public Administration degree and was looking forward to starting on his Master’s degree at Colombia University.  Unfortunately, time between missions with S.H.I.E.L.D. was rare and he hadn’t been able to apply.  He knew that Fury was trying to find a way to justify taking him out of the field, but like it or not, he was still trying to rebuild the trust of his fellow agents after Loki.  So, when all of his S.H.I.E.L.D. communication gear started to go haywire, week three into an undercover mission, he knew immediately that something was happening.  Something big.  So, he did what everyone else in Colombia was doing.  He went about his daily life, pretending nothing was wrong, until the news broke about Hydra infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D.

At that point, he decided to cut his mission as a loss.  Hydra taking over S.H.I.E.L.D. and the subsequent information leaking onto the internet made sure his cover was blown.  Not just blown.  Destroyed.  All of his aliases and his picture was out there for anyone to see.  So, in the middle of the night, he threw out all of gear S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him and prepared to slip away into the shadows.  The only exception was his bow.  That was the only thing he was certain didn’t have some sort of tracker on it.  After throwing his clothes into a backpack, he raided the safe house for every single bit of cash money that it contained.  Thankfully, most was in American dollars, but there were quite a bit in Colombian pesos as well.

He was just about to slip out of the apartment, when he heard heavy footsteps outside his door.  Reacting instinctively, he slipped out the window and began to squirrel his way to the roof, just as the door shattered inwards.  He wasn’t fast enough though.  Whoever the men were, they caught sight of him slipping out the window and began to shout.  Now, while Clint spoke very good Spanish, even he had a hard time catching exactly what he was saying due to the speed in which the men were speaking.  The few words he did make out, just caused him to climb faster.  He finally made it to the roof and paused to take stock of the situation. 

The slight clatter of gravel behind him caused him to turn quickly, to find a man with a feral grin and a knife glinting in the faint moonlight.  He didn’t think.  He didn’t reason.  He just reacted as he drew his own knife and lunged at the man.  The fight that followed was quick and brutal.  Clint was the superior fighter, but as he plunged his knife into the man’s gut, it left his right side open and the own man retaliated by plunging his own knife into Clint’s shoulder.  Clint didn’t even feel the pain as he finally slashed the man’s throat and watched as his body shuddered for the last time.

The sound of men running up the stairs energized him.  He looked around at the buildings close by and with adrenaline coursing through him, he quickly began to leap from rooftop to rooftop in an effort to lose the men chasing him.  _Amateurs,_ he thought as he landed with a roll.  _Only sending putting one man on the roof?  Stupid amateurs at that as well._ Once he was well into the slums of Bogota, where his antics by roof would likely draw the most attention, he slithered to the ground.  Quickly, he made his way into the shadows, knowing that he needed to check over his injuries.  Bruises, check.  Blood still leaking from the knife wound on his shoulder, check.  Anything life threatening?  Nope.  The knife wound was clean and miraculously hadn’t hit anything vital, so he quickly pulled a pressure bandage out of his backpack and tended to himself.  Once that was done, he changed shirts.  Although blood on his shirt wouldn’t draw attention in this neighborhood, he didn’t want his wounds to seem obvious.  With the men hunting for him, he knew he needed to find a place to hole up for the night to try to plan his next move.  This that in mind, he quickly packed his bag back up and strode into the faint light of the deserted streets.

#

Clint managed to get a couple of hours of good sleep and when he awoke, he began to plan how to get out of the city.  He had a feeling that Hydra was going to be looking for him mercilessly.  He waited until night fell the following day, then made his way to a series of small shops.  There he purchased some non-descript clothes and a burner phone.  He tried to call Natasha as soon as he got it, but she didn’t answer and he debated on leaving a message.  In the end he didn’t, concerned for both of their security.  Instead, he just sent a text.     _Having a great vacation!!_

Once he made his purchases, he retreated to his rented room for another night of trying to figure out how the hell to get out of Colombia.  He knew all of the normal options (planes and trains) were out.  He was stuck on deciding whether he needed to go to the north towards Panama or west towards the Pacific Ocean.  The only safe place he could think of at this point was Avenger’s Tower in New York.  As far as he knew, Stark had not completed rebuilding the Malibu home, so it was going to be a long, hard journey to get back into the United States undetected.  In the end, he decided to head west to the Pacific.  He had a feeling that he would have better luck trying to get passage on a boat than anything else.  That in mind, he fell back on the bed, hoping to get a good amount of sleep.

It was the crowing of roosters that woke him at the break of dawn.  Thankful that it was still early, he grabbed all of his gear, leaving the key to the room at the rickety front desk.  The old woman manning the desk just nodded as he walked out of the building.  He had stayed in worse places, so the unfriendliness of the staff hadn’t bothered him in the least bit.  As he hefted the pack onto his back, he felt the new phone buzz in his pocket.  He pulled it out and glanced down at the new text message flashing.  It was from Natasha.  _Your aunt Maria wants you to visit._   It buzzed again and an address came up.  He drew in a breath.  _Maria wants me to visit.  This is not good,_ he thought.  It could be a trap, but he didn’t think that was likely.  It was the phrasing that got him.  It has been used before, in Budapest to be exact.  The only difference was that time was it was his Uncle Nick that wanted him to visit.  The change in phrasing could only mean one thing.  Nick Fury was dead.

He made his way to the address as quickly as possible, hoping that this was an extraction plan for him.  The address led him to an apartment building not too far for the University City of Bogota.  He cautiously made his way to the tenth floor before knocking on the door of apartment 1015.  The woman that answered was not what he had expected.  She was a little shorter than him, with white hair pulled neatly back in a bun.  Laugh lines and wrinkles marked her face and she had kind eyes.  She gave him a look and asked him in Spanish, “You are looking for your Aunt Maria, yes?”

“Yes,” he replied back easily in Spanish, sensing that this woman did not speak English.

“She has left a message for you.  Please come in,” she said.  He walked in nervously, still hoping that this wasn’t an elaborate trap.  Once inside, she closed the door and he heard the locks click into place.  “I don’t have much time,” she said lowly.  “I’ve only managed to scramble the bugs for a few minutes.  S.H.I.E.L.D. is no more.  It is not safe for you here.  Hydra has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“How do I leave? They will have people watching the airports, train stations, car rental places,” he returned.

“There is a woman, in Ciudad Bolivar.  She will grant you safe passage.  I trust you know how to ride a horse?”

He nodded.  “How will I know this woman?”

She ripped a piece of paper off of a pad and handed it to him.  “This is the address.  When the woman answers the door, tell her that you heard about your Uncle Nico’s death and seek her help with the funeral.  She will know what it is you seek.”

“How far is Ciudad Bolivar from here?”

“Fifteen kilometers.  Now, you must go.”

“Thank you.”

She just nodded as she hustled him out of her apartment and onto the street.  He knew that he had a long walk ahead of him, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t hiked father and in far worse conditions than this.  With that in mind, he quickly set off on the journey.

It took him close to a full day to make it to the address the woman had given him.  He had been right to be paranoid about people following him, but thankfully, he had managed to shake off every tail he had spotted.  It had gotten easier once the sun had descended to the west.  He had excellent night vision, so all he had to do was take cover when he spotted someone coming towards him.  It was just after sunrise when he made it into Ciudad Bolivar proper.  He looked down at the address and walked for a few blocks before he found it.  Cautiously he knocked on the door. 

A beautiful woman answered it.  Her straight, black hair reached to her waist and her dark eyes were thinly lined in black.  “Yes?” she asked.

“My Uncle Nico has died and I need your help with the funeral.”

“Come in,” she said instantly, holding the door open wide. “Follow me to my office.”  Once inside the office, she gave him a curious look up and down.  “Do you prefer English?” she asked as she switched to the language.

Clint smiled.  She had a flawless accent.  “Since your English seems to be better than my Spanish, then yes.”

“Good.  My contact in Bogota was limited in the information she could send me safely.  You are Clint Barton, correct?”  He nodded.  “Good.  I am here to get you out of this country safely.  First, you have to leave this place and make your way to a little house to the west of the city.  There you will wait for me for two days.  From there, we will travel by horseback across the country, avoiding cities and villages until we reach Caracas, Venezuela.  Once there, I will help you change your appearance and arrange for you to join a cruise back to the United States.”

Clint sat in stunned silence for a moment.  “I have no idea what to say other than thank you.  And I don’t even know your name.”

The woman smiled.  “You may call me Pilar, and I shall call you Vicente.  It is better that way, no?”

Clint nodded.  “Pilar, I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

She laughed.  “Now, you must go.  I will meet you at this address,” she said as she handed him a slip of paper and a key, “in two days.”

Feeling a little bit of hope flutter in his chest, he took the slip of paper before quickly leaving.

#

Clint spent the following two days completely resting up.  The house that he had been directed to was small, but very well stocked.  Just after sunset on the second day, he heard a car pull up and reached for his gun.  Flicking the safety off, he held it at ready as a car door slammed.  There was a short knock on the door before it opened.  He sighed in relief as Pilar made her way in.  “ _Hola!_ ” she called out.

“ _Hola,_ Pilar,” he replied back as he flicked the safety back on and put the gun on a small table.

She smiled when she saw the gun.  “It is good to be prepared.  You never know when you might be compromised.”

“Constant vigilance,” he replied, a smirk on his face.

“Harry Potter.   Good series,” she replied.  “You are well rested, yes?”  He nodded.  “Good.  Until we are well into the wilderness, we will be riding from dawn ‘til dusk.  I’d travel by night, however the horses don’t like travelling in the dark.  That will be best for now.”

Clint winced.  Yes, he could ride, but he had never spent that long in the saddle.  “How do you plan on getting me across the border?” he asked.

“I know a guy.  He will grant us safe passage on his land,” she said as she opened her bag.  “For you to board the ship in Caracas, here are your new papers.”

He accepted the package and opened it.  Much to his shock, he found an American passport inside.  “How did you….”  He trailed off.  “Never mind.  I don’t want to know.” 

She shrugged.  “Probably for the best.  I promise that this will pass all of the inspections.”  She looked at him.  “Now, we must change your look.  The men will be looking for you leaving the country, so you must not look like yourself.”  He just gave her an unimpressed look.  “Do not worry.  When I am done, your best friends would not recognize you.”

Clint held back a snort as she walked to the dining room table and pulled an assortment of products out of her bag.  His best friend was a woman who changed her appearance easily.  She would not be fooled.  In the end, he submitted to her will and allowed her to begin.  He spent the next six hours with her applying latex prosthetics, skin darkening cream and much to his horror a hair weave.  When he was finally was allowed to look in the mirror, he was impressed.  He looked nothing like anything he had ever done before.  His hair had just been a hair’s breath away from military was now chin length, layered and a dark mahogany.  His chin and nose were completely different and with the darkening cream, all of his exposed skin was about four shades darker than normal.  “You do good work,” he said simply.

“Thank you.  Now, we must sleep.  Tomorrow, we will drive to the next county to pick up the horses.”

“How long will it take to get to Caracas?”

“With good weather and no delays?  Approximately a fortnight.  However, we are in the beginning of the rainy season, so I don’t expect the weather to stay clear.  It has been unusually dry so far.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I expect it to take anywhere from three weeks to a month.  Don’t worry, the skin darkening creams that I use are made to stand up to all climates, so it will not wash off in the rain.”

Clint just sighed.  “As long as I can avoid the people chasing me, then I don’t care about the time spent getting back home.”

Pilar just smiled.  “Don’t worry, Vicente.  I will ensure that you get home safe and sound.”

He just nodded as he stood, intent on sleeping as much as possible before his journey began.  _A month.  I can make it on horseback a month.  How hard can it be?_   He really should have known better than to tempt fate like that.  After all, Murphy’s Law dictates that anything that could go wrong, will go wrong.

#

The first day was excruciating.  He could barely walk once they had finally finished grooming the horses and setting up a small camp.  He could deal with that, especially since Pilar had brought some sort of homeopathic remedy that he swore was just horse liniment.  It worked, though.  When he awoke the next day, he wasn’t nearly as sore as he thought he should be.  The rest of that week was still okay.  It was the beginning of the following week when things started going wrong. 

Clint had never been experienced a rainy season, but after this trip he knew he would do everything in his power to prevent having the experience again.  It wasn’t just the constant drizzle that seemed to follow them throughout the day, but it was the twice daily deluges that really annoyed him.  They could barely keep a fire going at night and the constant chill was taking a toll on him.  If he hadn’t been in the wilderness, with a virtual stranger, he might have had a different outlook.  He thought longingly each night of the heat of the Middle Eastern deserts.  Add into that, the absolutely crazy amount of insects that wanted to crawl all over his body…Well, let’s just say he would sell his soul for some sort of repellant with Deet in it to keep them away from him.

Pilar wasn’t bad company, but she was very closed off.  She refused to share any personal details, always citing that it was best if she didn’t know too much.  What she didn’t know, she couldn’t betray.  He understood, really he did and when he had first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. he had been the same way.  Coulson had changed that for him, convinced him that it was okay to have acquaintances and now he realized how lonely his life had been prior to that.  _Damn Hydra for ripping that away from me!_

Week three, found them still in Colombia, their horses trying to pick their way across fields that were so bogged down with water they might has well been swamped.  That slowed them tremendously.  If they had been able to ride along the roads, it wouldn’t have been as bad.  Pilar deemed that too risky.   He really was getting tired of her hyperawareness when it came to safety.  He just wanted to be home.

Week four found them finally crossing over into Venezuela, much to his delight, but it also brought about the loss of the majority of their supplies in a mudslide that almost took them by surprise.  They were able to avoid the worst of it since they were scouting higher ground to look for a better path to follow.  Their campsite was unfortunately directly in the path.  After resupplying themselves at the closest village, it took another two weeks to finally arrive at a safe house outside of Caracas.  There Pilar helped him unload the horses. 

“What do we do from here?” Clint asked wearily as they finally stored the last of their meager supplies in the house.  He was still trying to figure out why he felt as he had been run over by a Mack truck and she looked as if she had just come from a day at the spa.  It was creepy.

“We don’t do anything,” Pilar answered him.  “Tomorrow, you will go to Caracas to begin your trip back to the United States.  My part of the journey is over.”  She walked over to the wall opposite the front door and carefully pressed the edge of a painting.  The painting swung open to reveal a safe with a biometric lock on it.  One palm print and eye scan later, the safe was open.  She extracted a large manila envelope from it before closing it.  “Here are all of your travel arrangements and the itinerary for your trip.  There is a man who will fly you to Puerto Rico, where you go from there, I do not know.  It is all in the itinerary.”  She gave him a once over.  “Go, you are exhausted.  Take a hot shower and sleep.  I will not be leaving until tomorrow, so I will keep watch tonight.”

It took a moment for him to process what she had said, but then he nodded.  Six weeks together had convinced him that if she was a plant from Hydra sent to kill him, she was spectacularly bad at her job.  She was right.  He was exhausted and the idea of hot water and a bed not crawling with bugs was his idea of heaven.  So he did just that.  He took a shower with water as hot as he could stand and then crawled into a mattress that felt like sleeping on a cloud after sleeping on the hard ground.

He awoke the next morning to find a car parked outside, keys on the table and Pilar gone.  Shrugging, he pulled out the itinerary and finally saw the end of the road.  Seven days until he was back on U.S. soil.  After that, it would just be a quick trip (comparatively) from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to New York to reunite with his teammates.

And for once in his life, Murphy’s Law left him alone and the plans went off without a hitch.  It was only once he reached New York safely, that the questions started to flow in his brain about how exactly one woman in Colombia knew exactly how to get a man like him out of the country without running across anything worse than natural disasters.  _Hill and I will be having a long discussion soon._

**Author's Note:**

> Hm. Wonder how that conversation with Hill is going to go?? That will be the next story in the series and after that, I finally have plans to address the elephant in the room with Coulson being alive. Personally, I think that Tony already knows just from some things that Hill said in episode 1x20 (Nothing Personal). But that is just my belief!!!
> 
> As always, I love hearing y'alls thoughts and reviews (they feed the muse)!


End file.
